Visitor referrer logs: Keeping in touch

Visitor referrer logs are valuable records to examine, from time to time. In my case, and probably yours too, the visitor logs get more than one peek a day. Admit it. It’s not just an exercise in ego or vanity to read your visitor log records. In fact, it might be the nicest thing you can do for the interests of your regular and new readership.

In the referrer records, there are probably indications of the keywords and phrases that discovered your blog. Everyone who uses a search engine types in a search phrase in the hope of finding some relevant information on the subject.

If the phrase found your blog, then one of the major search engines including Google, Yahoo, or MSN Search, thought your blog posts were important information. After all, your blog did appear in their search results.

By having that information at your fingertips, you know what information that your visitors seek. If the search is for some area of interest to you and your blog, and that was the topic of one of your blog posts, then it makes sense to write even more posts on the topic.

After all, that’s what your visitors want. I know that it’s fun to write new posts, on fresh areas of interest. We all do that, and we blog that way every day.

Sometimes, it makes sense to step back, and examine what your readers want to find at your blog.

To use a product marketing analogy, you are listening to the needs and desires of your current and future customer base. In this case, you existing blog customers are your regular readers, while new visitor traffic represents new clientele.

As we all are aware, I hope, a business that refuses to meet the needs of its customers doesn’t stay in operation for long. Blogs can suffer the same fate, if the blog writer’s post topics are of interest to almost no one.

The customer, or in this case, the blog reader knows best. Keep reading those visitor referrer logs, and continue searching for the interests of your readers.

Your increased blog traffic will be there to prove the idea a sound one. Oh. That information is contained in your visitor logs too.

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Wayne Hurlbert is the Editor of Blog Business World, specializing on blogs in business, marketing, public relations, and search engine optimization for successful entrepreneurs.